


The Warmth of It

by OddlyExquisite



Series: Green Things [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Love Letters, M/M, Mutually Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 21:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6874630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddlyExquisite/pseuds/OddlyExquisite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>This is what it means to love a Jedi:</em><br/>Obi-Wan struggles with attachment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Warmth of It

**Author's Note:**

> 1) First and foremost, let's have a large round of applause for my fantastic Beta, Merry_Amelie! She fixes my mistakes and her comments make me giggle-- what more could any author hope for? 
> 
> 2) This short series will be released concurrently with "Once More, Plainly".

* * *

 

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi is no stranger to intimacy.

(And love it not attachment, he has learned, love is something different. Or so he has been told.)

The first love letter he remembers receiving is from Garen, while they are still Initiates in the creche. (He's kept it all these years, locked away in a small, pinewood box beneath his bed. The smell of it reminds him of summer-warm earth and sap-sticky bark --  _"Whimsy,"_ some call it,  _"flights of fancy. What use have we for earth and bark in this duracrete jungle?"_ \-- but Obi-Wan Kenobi knows intimately the value of the extinct species of Coruscant.  _"What use have we for green things?"_ )

It is not unusual for him to find notes stuffed into his boots at the end of the day, carefully folded flimsy placed in his cupboard in the creche. The messages are shorter, more innocent in those days; conveying nothing of the bashful wistfulness that will come later, only the sweet sincerity of a being who expects nothing in return.

It is a time-honored tradition, he knows; the words on the page hardly matter as much as the fact that someone thought that he mattered, thought that he was worth the price of flimsy and ink and the time it takes to pour one's feelings into words and straight lines. Of all the romance and courtship rituals in the galaxy, this one is ingrained in the heart of every being in the universe.

It matters, in the end. Obi-Wan will always believe that if love had a scent, it would smell like sun-warm wood.

 

*********

Qui-Gon first sees the box when Obi-Wan moves into his quarters.

When the Jedi Master agrees to train the young boy as his Padawan, Obi-Wan's face transforms. Qui-Gon is completely entranced by the glowing delight that radiates off of the boy in waves. The expression speaks of years of uncertainty, a yearning to be wanted, needed, to have a place in the universe. Qui-Gon's heart skips a beat beneath the earnest weight of Obi-Wan's gaze. ( _"How can he be so certain that what he wants is here?"_ Qui-Gon wonders, marveling at the happiness that suffuses the boy's being as he walks at the Jedi Master's side, slightly behind.  _"How can he be so certain about me?"_ )

Days later, the older Jedi comes home to crates and piles of clothing strewn about his common room. Obi-Wan is buried somewhere in the mess, stubby red-gold hair glinting in the artificial light.

"Hello, Master!"

_Master._

"Padawan." The Jedi Master searches for the spiky-haired head, catching sight of the boy unpacking in front of the couch.

Obi-Wan is sifting through the contents of a small chest; flat-sided and plain, but undeniably treasured, he guesses, from the way the boy's hands hold it.

"Unpacking, Obi-Wan?"

He does not miss the way Obi-Wan closes the box before his Master can glimpse what is inside. Still, Qui-Gon does not push the matter -- even apprentices are entitled to privacy. Surely there were things of his own that he did not want his Padawan to find. Despite this, the Jedi Master is curious. What could be so precious that honest, open, giving-of-himself Obi-Wan could not bear to share it?

"Yes, Master. I'm sorry for the mess -- I'll be done soon."

Qui-Gon rests his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Take your time."

The Jedi Master watches Obi-Wan's fingers wander over the carvings in the wood. (If steel runs through the veins of the earth, then surely wood is its bones. When he is older, Obi-Wan will touch the smooth planes, the finger-worn edges, and wonder what it feels like to touch a lover.)

"Welcome home," Qui-Gon says softly. He doesn't need to look down to see the tears in Obi-Wan's eyes.

 

*********

When Obi-Wan is twenty, they take a year-long position on Allyuen, an Outer Rim planet with only one spaceport and poor comm reception. The landscape is all desert, dry and gritty, dotted with the remains of abandoned tunnels, the rotting skeletons of a dying mining corporation.

By day they sleep; burrowed into the cool earth, safe in a bunker reserved for representatives and diplomats. It is not a comfortable place, but Obi-Wan doesn't mind. A Jedi has no use for comfort. That in itself is familiar enough. There is something about this planet that resonates in the deepest parts of his soul; something about the still, hot air, the blistering sun, that evokes nostalgia in him -- a memory only half-formed.

At night, while they carefully guarded the miners' wares before they were transported off-planet, Qui-Gon would tell him stories about how Allyuen became a desert. ( _"There is a legend among the Allyuen, about a heartbroken sun god who once waged war on the sea..._ ) It was a different story every time, but that didn't matter. Qui-Gon's voice could conjure the edicts of the gods, the cries of mortal beings, as if he were there when it happened. As if he were born for storytelling. ( _"...and in his wrath destroyed the very earth he had so loved; a lesson, the story goes, to jealous lovers. Hold a thing too tightly, and you will smother it...this is the worst kind of murder."_ ) There is something ageless about this man, Obi-Wan thinks privately, watching his lips move; something startlingly immortal woven into the scarred skin and graying hair.

Later, Obi-Wan would remember the sunrises.

He would stand outside, just before sleep, heedless of the rising heat, waiting for the brilliant gold and purple streaks to interrupt the darkened sky. Sometimes, Qui-Gon would wait with him. Patient, asking nothing of him but his continued company, humoring his Padawan's whims. In those moments, oftentimes a brief, gentle wind would brush the Jedi Master's scent into Obi-Wan's nose; warm cedar and damp earth.

Together in the warmth of early dawn, they would breathe.

 

*********

Master Windu comes to oversee Obi-Wan's training one day. He and Qui-Gon stand behind the protective glass of the viewing room.

Qui-Gon knows that his friend has always taken a special, discreet interest in him, and that, by extension, he had taken a special, discreet interest in Obi-Wan. The Jedi Master appreciates the caring that lies behind the title 'Council member'. He just wishes Mace weren't so damn observant.

"Extraordinary," Mace says, watching Obi-Wan spin and flip through the air, "You may have met your match, my friend."

The secret pride of a Master swells in Qui-Gon's chest. He doesn't have to look at his apprentice to know what Mace is seeing; he has long since memorized the joyful grace with which his Padawan dances, the flawless technique with which he wields his 'saber. So many Jedi thought of their katas as a weapon; Obi-Wan treated them as a communion with the Force itself.

(And Obi-Wan has always heard the Force strongest in battle, in the movement of sweat-soaked limbs and the exhilaration that comes from falling through the air with nothing to catch you.)

"In more ways than one," Qui-Gon agrees, a bit belatedly.

Mace fixes him with a piercing stare, the one Qui-Gon knows all too well, as it is usually reserved for reprimands in the Council chamber.

"He will be leaving you soon," Mace says.

Qui-Gon nods.

Mace turns back to the viewing window. "He will not belong to you anymore."

Qui-Gon watches the Jedi Master watch Obi-Wan, and recalls a conversation they'd had years ago:

_"Force, the job just gets harder, Qui-Gon." Mace rubs a hand across his eyes. "We're spread too thin. We don't have the resources we once had."_

_"Things are changing," Qui-Gon agrees, sipping his drink. The alcohol leaves a pleasant warmth in his stomach._

_"Is young Obi-Wan still getting those letters?"_

_"Every week, at least."_

_"Hmph." Mace takes a swig of his drink. "With those Force-skills and good looks, he should at least have the decency to develop the personality of a mollusk. Give the rest of us a chance."_

_Qui-Gon looks at his friend in amusement. "He couldn't if he tried."_

_"No," Mace agrees, staring into his drink, "He couldn't."_

Qui-Gon comes back to the present.

"Obi-Wan does not belong to anyone," he says, firmly.

 

*********

It begins when he is twenty-two, and comes in the form of a creamy white envelope. His name is embossed on the front in gold; the flimsy heavy and thick with sharp-smelling ink, dark and rich. Obi-Wan does not need a shopkeep to tell him that these materials are expensive, that they are worth the majority of his month's stipend. There are no distinguishing features about it: no name, no sigil, no marks of identification. And the letter itself is not much of a letter.

 _I wish I were close_  
_To you as the wet skirt of_  
_A salt girl to her body._  
_I think of you always._

"Another lovelorn suitor, Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon emerges from his bedroom, dressed for their afternoon sparring session.

Obi-Wan grunts affirmatively. "Nothing important."

Qui-Gon's eyes on his feel like heavy velvet.

"I see," the Jedi Master says.

 

*********

Obi-Wan is Knighted by Yoda in front of Qui-Gon's still body.

His braid is cut while the medics suspend his Master in a bacta tank.

The Council sends him on his first mission before he even has a chance to say goodbye, which is fine. The universe is not kind to Jedi, and Qui-Gon cannot hear him anyway.

He receives updates from the healers while he is away: 'Master Jinn is doing well. He walked today'; 'He has a hard time breathing after strenuous workouts'; 'He is awake again. The fever is down. Just thought we'd let you know'. The transmissions are always good news, but by the end of them his hands are always shaky.

Three months later, after Obi-Wan staggers off of his transport as dawn pierces the glass Temple windows, he sees him: Qui-Gon, tall, commanding, whole, speaking with a group of Masters in the training halls.

Obi-Wan acknowledges that only months before he would have gone to his Master immediately, eager to share his accomplishments, his failures, his thoughts, unsolicited though they may have been. Qui-Gon had a way of filling a room with his presence, something many attributed to Jedi in general, but Obi-Wan knows the truth of it, knows that if Qui-Gon ordered the stars to earth, they would fall, just for him...

He turns away from the window, the vague realization that he no longer feels that same compulsion weighing heavy on his neck. How much could one being change in a handful of weeks, a handful of lonely months?

_Hold a thing too tightly and you will smother it..._

How much could one being change before it became some kind of murder?

 

*********

Obi-Wan's next mission is a failure.

It is cold, for one thing; cold and loud and lonely. He does everything he can to keep negotiations going, short of threatening officials at blaster-point. It is not enough, in the end. Once he knows that each faction's officials are safe, he disappears into the streets. (It is easy to disappear like this, easy to get lost in a city with no maps, no overriding logic to its roads.) He surfaces at the spaceport, some days later, all but dead on his feet, frostbitten with sluggish blood and infected wounds. 

On the transport home from Flarrem, Obi-Wan patches himself up and daydreams of the mission to Allyuen; of the bright sun, his Master's thoughtful eyes, the feel of sand between his teeth.

He entertains the idea of sending a transmission ahead of the transport, but stops himself before he can even recall his Master's comm number.

 _Do you remember sunrise on Allyuen?_ he wants to ask.

But he doesn't. Because Qui-Gon is busy now. Because Obi-Wan hasn't seen him in months.

Because, in the end, what he really wants to ask is this:  _Did you notice the smell of me, on Allyuen, when the wind blew at dawn?_

 

*********

This is what it means to love a Jedi: 

You try not to, at first. Really, you do. Because while the Jedi have very few rules regarding love and sex and the intimacy that follows, there is still this one rule that exists:

A Jedi must never know attachment.

And you understand why, of course -- attachment is a dangerous thing. Dangerous to the Jedi, who have sworn their very lives to the Force and to the Order. (Secretly, in your more rebellious moments, you will wonder if the Force cares one whit whether or not the Jedi have attachments...who said the Order was doing the work of the Force, anyway? These moments are exceedingly rare and are always followed by a bout of intense meditation.)

Nevertheless, you will find that attachment is, in most beings, an instinct. A compulsion, perhaps on a biological level. (If love is just a chemical reaction, surely attachment is too?)

You don't worry about it until your seventeenth birthday, when your Master nearly dies on a mission to Alkazar Prime. He is lying in your lap, bleeding from a severe head injury, and you have never seen so much blood come from one person in your entire life. It occurs to you, in the wild moments between ordering your panicked transport pilot to stabilize the IV and immersing yourself in the healing Force, that you would, in this very instant, do anything to save your Master's life.

Defect from the Order. Sacrifice your own life. Perhaps even sacrifice another. Anything.

Later, after the healing (which is less than perfect, because you are less than perfect), you sit by yourself and try to stem the fear that comes from this realization. You try to separate out which parts come from love and which from attachment. You try to identify the point in your apprenticeship where you began to think your Master was worthy of entire galaxies.

A Jedi must never know attachment.

_So what does that make you?_

 

*****

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The poem in the love letter belongs to 7th century Japanese poet Yamabe no Akahito.


End file.
